Culture Shock
by Chara-The-Heart
Summary: I sometimes thought it would be cool to be transported into an anime. Too bad I didn't consider language barriors, unfortunate misunderstandings or even local foods. psedoselfinsert
1. Normal Days Have Ended

Culture Shock Part One

by Chara-the-Heart

Summery: I sometimes thought it would be cool to be transportef into an anime. Too bad I didn't consider language barriors, unfortunate misunderstandings or even local foods. psedo-self-insert

Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist (Hiromu Arakawa)

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**Chapter One: Normal Days Have Ended**

My name is Jenna Bell and what you're about to read is an account of how wishes and dreams can come true in the most bizzarre and complicated ways possible. And for me it started on the most ordinary of days.

It was a Friday at the end of November when it happened. My school is called Sedona Magnet High School and it's magnet program specilizes in Life Sciences like biology, medicine, botony, zoology and such. I was a freshman, didn't have any interest in school clubs and I've never been a fan of organized sports. My only hobby really has always been reading and writing. And learning. I've always wanted to make a living being a studant for the rest of my life but since that would really drain money after collage I've been leaning more towards being a teacher. At least they get long summer vacations...

Anyway, other than reading and writing I had been slowly getting into the anime, Inuyasha, thanks in part to my two closest friends, Tory and Kristen. Tori is the artistic genious of the school while Kristen writes music and plays _lots_ of musical instraments. Those two had been friends since kindergarden and when I entered middle school they kind of just melded me into their circle. Those two had really sucky home lives too. They would always ramble on and on about how they wished they could leave the world and meet Inuyasha and his brother Sesshoumaru. Compared to them my life was a modern Brady Bunch episode. My mom and I got along well, my dad and I respected each other and my siblings (one older sister, two younger brothers) were the best of friends. So why all this happened to me is insane and ironic. I just don't fit into the 'insane fan girl' steriotype, yeah it would be cool to go into 'Inuyasha' but its not like that stuff happens in real life.

School that day was ordinary for a Friday. I turned in a few assignments, got assigned weekend homework in every class, ate lunch outside with my friends ('Look, I drew a new picture of Inuyasha and Kagome.' 'Wow, that's insane talent, Tori.') and after school walked a quarter mile to buy my weekend candy as my ritual demanded. I always have had a sweet tooth and every week switch off the candy typpe I eat weather it be snickers, twizzlers, skittles or bubblegum.

This week I bought a stash of skittles. After that I walked across the street to the public bus stop and fished a novel (Good Omens) out to read while the bus came. I am a full bodied reader. I don't just skim the surface of a book I delve as deep into a story as my mind will alow and literally '_destroy'_ a book. I write in the margins, I cross stupid stuff out, I correct bad grammer (believe it or not editors do miss a lot of things) that is, unless it's a fictional book. I've only read one book in my life that got me so pissed off I literally set it on fire. Books consume me...

So when I felt a shiver go up my spine and looked up I was shocked to find myself, not at the bus stop like I was before, but at a train station, nipped by the air of a cold autumn afternoon.

"Oookay? What the heck just happened?" I asked myself, about ready to panic. I couldn't understand how I got there! "Am I...dreaming?" I contemplated pincing myself but that never really worked for me. I just figured I was lucky that I realized it was a dream because I've never had any luck trying to control the things that flash threw my head.

"Cmotpetv! Noela noehann he!" I looked over to the side and saw a blond teenage girl with light brown eyes running up to the train station with a larger man that looked like a cosplaying transformer. The girl looked over at me before looking towards her cosplaying friend and said, "Cmotpetv na aebokta. Cnpaiwhatb ee anr newa." Her voice sounded kind of harsh and very...Russian...

The cosplaying guy shuffled nervously before turning to me and asking, "Korna noela iiphxoltb ne?"

"I have no idea what you just said buddy," I replied. Why couldn't people in my dreams speak Spanish if they were going to talk in a forigen language? Or Japanese. At least with Tori and Kristen rambling in pseudo-Japanese I could have said 'help me out'.

The girl shoved the large cosplayer away from me and lead him away, whispering suspiciously to him. "Hmph, stupid English-speaker racist. Its not like I make fun of her for speaking that wierd Russian language..."

The girl suddenly appeared in front of me again, this time two feet in front of my face and I realized with a start that her eyes were golden, not light brown, "Wow, you're a really pretty girl. To bad your attitude sucks."

"Aenatbtbl rhebotnb mehr kopotvknn?"

"Uh...no habla espanol? Sorry miss, but I can't understand you."

She took out a silver pocket watch from her pants showed it to me with a tap of her finger, then pointed down the tracks. Oh! She wanted to know if she thought the train would be coming by? I shook my head in the positive and said, "Sorry I just got here, but I think it should be here in a few minutes...or an hour or two."

"Cnwrobab mehr." The girl nodded and plopped down next to me, eyeing my book in interet. I suppose she was just killing time until the train came.

"This book is in English. You won't be able to understand it even if you do read over my shoulder." I blinked and then remembered something my math teacher had said at the beginning of the year while trying to reign in the student's interest in his subject. _'If you know and understand math you can have a starting point for conversation no matter what language you speak! Words constantly change but numbers never do."_

So on a whim I pulled out my Algebra 2 book and showed her the page I was on, jokingly asking, "So Blondita, want to help me with my homework?"

The girl looked at the book with a gleam of excitement in her eye, read a few lines before frowning and handing it back to me, muttering, "Eenp npovbhhytbih."

"I guess you don't like math..." When the train came allong the girl pulled the transformer cosplayer behind her and gestured for me to follow. Since I still thought I was dreaming, I did. If I had known where the tracks that train was going to take me I probably would have stayed home...

Ed and Al's POV

"Hey Al, look it's the train station!" Ed said as he ran up to the wooden building. It was far out in the middle of nowhere so he was surprised to see a teenage girl with dark blond hair, smokey green eyes and glasses looking over to he and his brother in slight surprise. There was a thick brown bag at her feet and she wore a blue coat of a strange material (windbraker)

"Hey, its a girl Al. Go ask her when the train comes."

With a sigh Al did shuffle up to the girl and asked, "Excuse me Miss? What time does the train to Central come?"

The girl looked slightly exasperated and replied, "Greeah no keble nate budayta."

Ed pulled Al off to the side and wispered, "I can't believe that bastard colonal sent a spy on me, retending to speak another language."

"Arn't you jumping to conclusions, brother? She could just be from another country."

"I'll just show her my Alchemist watch and ask her straight out if she's from Mustang then."

He jumped up in front of the girl and was surprised when she gasped in awe and said, "Pavani! Cortuvla pulva nuka de sonu."

"Did my commanding officer send you here to take me back to Central?" he tapped his watch to make sure she understood he ment the upper alchemist.

The girl nodded happily and babbled something else in her wierd language but at least she was honest. He plopped down next to her and looked at the book she held in curiosity. It was written in a very strange looking language. Before he knew it she suddently said something and pulled a book from the bag at her feet and handed it to him speaking in an excited tone.

There was what looked like an Alchemic array on the front and he took it eagerly but he went a few pages in before figuring out it was a simple math book written in her own language. "This is pathetic. If you give me math give me something more advanced."

Soon the train pulled in and Ed pulled the girl allong with him, intending to give both her and Mustang a good verbal lashing--together.

---End Chapter One---

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Well what do you think so far? This isn't really a self insert since this Jenna is clueless to the Fullmetal world, but hey, whoever said the dimension-crossing-powers-that-be were fair? 


	2. In Which 'Numa' Is A Dirty Song

Culture Shock Part One

by Chara-the-Heart

Summery: I sometimes thought it would be cool to be transportef into an anime. Too bad I didn't consider language barriors, unfortunate misunderstandings or even local foods. psedo-self-insert

Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist (Hiromu Arakawa)

**_Note:_** _This chapter has some heavy cursing and innuendo! You have been warned!_

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Chapter Two: In which 'Numa' is a Dirty Song

Train rides were boring. Almost as boring as taking the bus in fact. It didn't help that everyone around her was talking in a forgen language and she couldn't wake up from her dream yet! The blond girl was asleep next to the cosplayer and after a few minutes of attempted coversation Jenna gave up on trying to talk to him and decided to listen to music on her ipod. Inspired by the wierd language she decided to listen to Ozone's 'Numa Numa' song and before long she was happily singing along, not seeing the horrified, blushing faces of the passangers around her.

"_Vrei sa pleci dar nu ma nu ma iei  
Nu ma nu ma iei nu ma nu ma nu ma iei.  
Chipul tau si dragostea din tei  
Mi-amintesc de ochii tai_."

Al was confused. He thought the strange girl didn't know their language and now she was singing..._that._ Roughly translated she was singing.

"You are a bastard-bastard-whore

bastard-bastard-whore, bastard-bastard-bastard-whore

Oh come back to me and

sex up with me tonight!"

Al felt embarrassed by the whispers ferosiously spinning around them, "Can you believe the nerve of that girl!?" "Where are the morals of children these days?" "There are children in this compartment, dosn't that girl care?"

Ed had actually woken up due to her singing and he was flushing very badly in front of the girl, "It figures the girl Mustang hired would be a bigger pervert then even _he_ is."

"Maybe she dosn't know what she's saying Ed. Her accent is _terrible._" Al suggested. But Ed wasn't listening.

With a scowl he roughly tapped the girl on the shoulder and she looked up at him in confusion. "What the heck are you doing girl! That's the worst sounding song I've heard in my life! Where's your sence of woman pride!?"

Jenna couldn't understand what the girl was saying but she did sound angry. What was wrong with her? Maybe 'numa' actually meant something in their language? But what? Judging by the blond's attitude it was probably a rude or insulting word. Well at least now if someone was a jerk she could call them 'nu ma'.

"Okay, I won't sing out loud any more," Jenna said and switched the music to Metallica instead. Almost a half-hour later the cosplayer tapped Jenna on the shoulder and gestured for her to follow him and his companion.

They walked down to a really old fashioned car and it drove them down to a very official building, "Great! The police should have an interpreter on staff and I can go home! You two are great!"

Jenna cheerfully hugged the cosplayed and draped her right arm around the shorter girl blinking in surprise when she felt cold bolts and steel instead of a flesh shoulder. The girl pushed her away and stomped towards the building, dragging her and the cosplayed forcefully behind her.

"MUSTANG!" Ed roared as he finally spotted the Colonal with his usual entourage surrounding him, "Who the hell is _she!?_"

He pushed the baffled Jenna in front of her and she looked dazedly around the room. She suddenly pointed to a portrait on the wall and babbled something in her odd language.

Roy rose an eyebrow at the display and said, "I don't know what you mean, Fullmetal. She looks to me like a baffled tourist."

"LIAR! I know you sent her to spy on me! Why else would she be in the middle of nowhere waiting for a train? I even asked if you sent her and she agreed!"

"Did she agree verbally, Fullmetal?"

Edward paused in his ranting and shook his head, "No...but she _was_ singing a...strange song a little earlier and I could understand it completely."

Roy smirked and Roy said, "And what song exactly would that be?"

Ed turned to the girl and hissed, "I know I told you to shut up about it but sing that 'bastard-bastard' song so you can prove you speak this language."

Jenna was sure she heard 'numa-numa' mentioned in that sentence. He wanted her to play the song? And after all that rukus on the train? She sighed and pulled out her mini ipod speakers, _'Why do I get the feeling I'm going to regrett doing this?'_ Jenna thought as she played the song and music filtered into the air.

'_Mi-a-hii Mi-a-huu Mi-a-haa Mi-a-ha ha / Mi-a-hii Mi-a-huu Mi-a-haa Mi-a-ha ha / Allo, salut, sint yel, un hydook / she teraw, youbeera mah, primesh der, vericheera / Allo, Allo, sint yel, Picasso / Tiam dat beep, she sen voynic / un dar sege ti notes cher nimeek / Vrei sa pleci dar nu ma nu ma iei / Nu ma nu ma iei nu ma nu ma nu ma iei / Chipul tau si dragostea din tei / Mi-amintesc de ochii tai._'

Mustang began to choke at the lyrics as did the rest of the people around him, "Is this a joke Fullmetal? How does _that_ even prove she knows this language!? She probably dosn't know what it means and likes the tempo of the song, as strange as it is...do you even know her name!?"

Ed turned to the girl and proceeded to point to himself and different people in the room, "Edward, Alphonse, Mustang, Hawkeye, Breda, Havoc, Falman, Fuery." He finally pointed to Jenna.

She rose an eyebrow at the introductions, _'But Edward is a boys name...'_ With a slightly embarrassed face she pointed to herself and said, "Jenna."

"Well then Miss Jenna," Mustang said with a wince as the song mentioned something exletive involving a tire, three dogs and a ciggerette, causing Havoc to romove his own, "You'll be under arrest and questioning for entering this country without a passport, spying and public discord. Breda take her to prison."

"Yes Sir, Colonal Mustang." Breda said with a salute. And escorted Jenna away from the group with a grimance on his face when the song mentioned something kinky involving a horse, a dog and two fire hydrants.

Jenna found herself in prison. She had all her things taken away, was yelled at in some language and was now wallowing in misery in a jail cell beside several men she was sure wern't making kind comments towards her. "Oh shut up, you numas...why is this happening too me!?"

---End Chapter Two---

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Thanks for all your reviews and support everyone! The two pov's in the last chapter was a bit confusing to me so I just blended the story into a more omnisiant pov. Hope you still enjoyed it though! 


	3. What's All This Crap?

Culture Shock

by Chara-the-Heart

Summery: I sometimes thought it would be cool to be transportef into an anime. Too bad I didn't consider language barriors, unfortunate misunderstandings or even local foods. psedo-self-insert

Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist (Hiromu Arakawa)

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Chapter Three: What's All This Crap?

It was an ordinary box. Inside it were the things confiscated by prisoner #28 (aka 'Jenna). PVC Richard Gronwick's job was to take the objects in the box and catalog them to be investigated by the proper authorities. Inside the box was a bag of the color green, a bundle of clothing (prisoner's wore a special uniform) and a strange box made of metal and a strange substance. The cloathing was fairly easy to catalog and so was the bag but after that things in the bag life began to get tricky for Richard.

There where fourteen books. He couldn't read them at all but they some of them looked pretty advanced. Other's where strange with drawings of people with large head and strange eyes. Possibly a comic about mutants? In actuality sice Jenna got...transported on a Friday most of the books where for doing homework over the weekend. Midterms where coming up in about three weeks and she wanted to do well on them. She had a textbook for each of her classes: Human Biology, Earth Science, Algebra 2, Freshman English, World History, Beginning Spanish and her elective Alternative Medicine.

Not only that she also was given two Inuyasha manga's to read over the weekend by her friends and had six other books where there just to read 'for fun'. They were Good Omens, The Collected Works of Sir Issac Newton, a Bible, a Biography of Abraham Licoln and An Idiot's Guide to Playing Piano. There where also seven spiral notebooks with _very_ unorganized notes for classes and random ideas for private use, graphing paper for her algebra class and a solar calculator.

Food was easy for Private Gronwick to catalog, though it was certainly not _ordinary_ food. There were the remains of Jenna's lunch, a bag of half-eaten corn chips and half a peanut butter sandwitch. The other things were all in sealed packages: a bag of skittles, two granola bars and dried cherries. There was also a set of steel utensils and a clear bottle of an unknown material (plastic) with water in it.

There were four mechanical pencils with refills and two dozen pens, ten in black ink, ten in blue, and one each in green, red, metallic silver and pink. There was also a roll of floss and a nailclipper.

Lastly came Jenna's wallet. In it was her school i.d., a public library card, a coffeeXchange gift card, $12.56 in cash, a public bus pass, assorted photos of family members and a club card for Boarders Bookstores.

PVC Gronwick was feeling frustrated. What jurisdiction did suspicious pens with strange ink colors go? Family photos? A fork, knife and spoon? A tiny machine with rubber buttons on it? He couldn't even seperate the books because some didn't have pictures so he couldn't figure out if they were science, history or even fictional books.

Meanwhile interrogating Jenna was giving Major Eliza Myers a headache as well. How was she supposed to question this girl if _no one_ in the _entirety_ of Central could speak her language!? She was going to strangle that Fullmetal kid for dragging her all the way from the middle of nowhere. "Okay let's try this again. This is a transmutation circle. Do you know how to activate one?"

The girl for sure wasn't an alchemist. When handed a piece of paper and given a demonstraition to draw a circle she couldn't even get a straight line. The girl was obviously tired. The past 48 hours had been a nightmare for the both of them and Eliza was reaching the end of her rope. That's when the girl began to do something...odd.

She was bowing her head and had her eyes closed. She was obviously distressed by the witness of the tears coming down her face but as she spoke her odd language another began to emerge. "Lechah' dodi' likrat' kah-la-"

A passing fellow soldier froze and in a horrified whisper he asked, "Myers? Is that girl...speaking Ishbalan?"

"It sounds similar to it but I'm not sure. Do you know anyone who can speak Ishbalan fluently around here?" Eliza asked.

Her coworker winced and he said, "I only know of three who are in the building currently. Colonal Mutang, 1st Liutenent Hawkeye and Lieutenant Colonel Hughes."

"You'd better get the Lt. Colonel then. He would perobably be nicer to her since he hasn't heard that song yet." Eliza said frowning in annoyance when he left, humming that song along in stride., "And stop singingnit, that song is annoying!"

"I can't help it. That song's tune is pretty catchy."

Jenna didn't know what to do, she was frustraited, cold, mad, sad and scared. What happened to her? Where was she. This was going on far too long to merely be a dream. She was living in normal time, sleeping eating and breathing but she was living in a nightmare! "I want to go home..." she said with a sigh. Bitterness swept up inside her and so she began to pray. Her whole family was Jewish Orthodox and she was able to speek Hebrew fluently thanks to her grandparent's never ending chatter in it.

Needless to say she was completely startled when a man with black hair, green eyes and glasses decided to sit on the other side of the bars of her jail cell and struck up a conversation with her, "Hello there young lady. It must be frustraiting being stuck in a place where no one understands you. Would you like to see my daughter Elicia? She's three years old and absolutely adorible!"

The man shoved a picture of a cute little girl in front of her and she hesitantly smiled, "Your daughter is very cute, sir. I have a cousin named Angelina who looks similar to her. Is she going to have any siblings at all?"

The man exploded into a wide grin as if the idea had never occurred to him before, "What a wonderful idea! A little sister would be perfect for Elicia! What's your name, by the way? Your prisoner card only says 'Jenna'."

"I'm Jenna Bell, I'm fifteen. Who are you?"

"I'm Lt. Colonel Maes Hughes and I'm a soldier in the military of Amestris. It's a pleasure to meet you miss. How did you come to know the language of Ishbala so well? You don't look like an Ishbalan."

"We're not speaking Ishbalan. We're speaking Hebrew and I'm not a Ishalan or whatever you said, I'm Jewish-American. My ancestry comes from Russia, England, Scotland and Germany. I've been meaning to ask this anyway: Where in the world am I?"

Hughes looked concerned, "Amestris is the most powerful country in the world. Are you suffering from a head injury at all?"

"No I am not! And Amestris isn't the most powerful country in the world! The United States is!"

..."This could be a problem sending you home if you are as insane as you seem to be."

"I'm not crazy! I just wand to go home!"

End Chapter Three

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Sorry for stalling on this chapter. The story is going to get much more...interesting from here on out so stick around! Thank you for all of you who have reviewed and I'll begin working on the next chapter immediately! 


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